this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2024
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Global population density (www.visualcapitalist.com)
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] eighty 63 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Great visual on how sparsely populated Australia is.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I like how you can just about make out the shape of Australia's east and south coastlines.

[–] idiomaddict 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I’m not good at geography, but I’m going to pretend that that’s New Zealand and this is revenge for all the times NZ was left off the map.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

But you actually can make out New Zealand!('s North Island.) Auckland is easy to see, and I can just make out Wellington from the preview version. When I look at the full-resolution there are enough dots scattered around to make out the full North Island, plus a couple of the bigger towns on the South Island.

[–] idiomaddict 3 points 4 months ago

Double New Zealand

[–] atocci 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

But not Canada at all. I figured it would be Australia that would be completely invisible, but nope, Canada.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago

Not being an island, and having about 90% of the population within 100 km of the US border, really doesn't do Canada any favours in this illustration.

[–] cabron_offsets 48 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] spicytuna62 30 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Probably had been for a while as Chinese numbers aren't considered to be reliable

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

By whom? How could China's numbers be less reliable than India's?

[–] [email protected] 39 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'm in this picture, and I don't like it

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I don't think I am - and I do like it.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago (1 children)

How's that 8-day trip to ISS going?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Nothing that exciting. I just live in a very small community, quite a distance from any larger community, and I'm pretty sure that at the scale of that map - my community doesn't exist. If I zoom in enough, maybe there's something there, but I think it's digital compression artefacts.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Europe looks less dense than what I expected. And north Africa is way denser than I thought. Which puts the "migrant crisis" in perspective.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The Pharaohs might be gone, but Egypt never stopped being a massive population center.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I was more surprised by the northwest. from Casablanca to Algiers to Tunis.

[–] joostjakob 4 points 4 months ago

Basically all countries that started having some economic growth since 1950 will have this spike effect. The countries that were already rich had a slow population transition, the other ones a fast one. The short version of that story is that in the latter child mortality went down slowly, and in the the former it was a quick proces. People take some time to adapt to this new reality, which means that for a shirt period of time 10 of 10 children will grow up to have kids of their own. After a while, the amount of children goes down to 2 or less, and growth stops. In Europe, this lade population multiply by two or three, in North Africa for example it can be up to times five or more. And in modern societies, this kind of growth tends to concentrate in cities.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

What you didn't say is how empty the Sahara is. Still refugees don't just stay there. I wonder why. /s

[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 months ago

Dang, India needs to find a different hobby.

[–] idiomaddict 15 points 4 months ago

I had no idea Port-au-Prince was so dense. It’s the ninth most densely populated city in the world and top in the Western Hemisphere.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yet other map ignoring New Zealand.

/s

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I get your joke but isn't it there? Or is this part of Austria? It's hard to tell but I think New Zealand is there

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It's there. I'd argue Australia is worse off in this map.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yet it is there. Only continent totally thrown of the edge is Antarctica. I wonder why... just asking questions, not implying any agenda

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

I don't think penguins are included in the population count, otherwise NZ would have another 500k population.

I'm pretty sure there's a Big Antarctica conspiracy to keep penguins off the map, hiding their army of 44m penguins.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

Beautiful map!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

Ray Tracing to make the data science look good.

👍

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The Sahara looks pretty hostile here

[–] khannie 3 points 4 months ago

Western China too. I flew over it and it's like an endless mountainous wasteland.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

This place acts like legends are illegal or something.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This map looks good, but feels somewhat misleading. For me, it looks like India is home to about half of the world's population.

Still, very beautiful presentation.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 months ago

India has 17% of the world's population - on a scale like this image, that's not far off "about half"! It looks right to me.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

Holy shit i had no idea Ethiopia was so crowded. it's cool how you can see population swells around the Nile and Lake Victoria too. and the Mediterranean coast of course. and I guess Nigeria is just a good place to live??

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

Huh, I can read Canada. I call bullshit on the 2x2 thing, though. This is more like 10x10, otherwise you'd see a lot of smaller communities.

It's mostly not surprising, but laid out like that I wonder how long places out of the historical spotlight have been that populous. Ethiopia is quasi-historical enough we can be pretty sure it's long been a center, but the African Great Lakes? Who knows.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

What was it?

c/mapswithoutnewzealand

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Madrid is gone, reduced to ashes? And so is Barcelona? Weird

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

They are there but hidden beyond North Africa spikes

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Pretty sure that if you can see Valencia and surroundings, you should be able to see Barcelona which is to its northeast, and that small central peak in the Iberian Peninsula looks to me to be close to Madrid, what is it then?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

I'm on mobile, so a bit annoying to edit pictures, but having looked at it again, Barcelona and Madrid are visible.

[–] Lemminary 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Let's take a moment to appreciate that almost every one of those billions of people was someone doing the dirty and the rest were turkey-bastered in :3

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for keeping us on topic, Chief. We almost stopped thinking about sex for a min.

[–] Lemminary 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Nah, you're just not funny

[–] Lemminary 1 points 4 months ago

You're humorless but go off.